Exactly
four weeks from today we’ll be touching down in Madrid after our long overnight
flight from Boston (via Newark - I know, I know ~ I broke Rule # 2 –“Never Fly Newark!, but it was the only United
flight from Boston that fit). This whole Camino thing -it’s starting to get “real”
now.
Yesterday
I went out and bought a new lighter backpack at REI to save 1&1/2 pounds of
weight. My old Gregory Z40 weighs 52 ounces so I replaced it with a Osprey Talon
33 that weighs only 29 ounces. This will get me down to 12 &1/2 pounds on my back
with everything I need for two months. No tents, sleeping bag, cooking stuff
or food of course, since this is a journey where we will stay in hostels and
eat pilgrim meals most of the time. I will carry a couple of Cliff energy bars for
emergencies! Check out Joan's packing list in the previous blog posting to get an idea of how to pack really light.
A
few days ago Joan & I drove over to York, Maine to climb the closest small
mountain in our area. This is Mt. Agamenticus,
which rises a majestic 700 feet in a vast conservation area overlooking the
Atlantic Ocean. From the top we had a clear view of Mt. Washington to the north
and Mt. Monadnock to the west in New Hampshire as well as the tall buildings in
Boston, 50 miles to the south.
As a former skier, I was interested to
learn about the history of this small New England ski area.
The "Big A" was opened
in1964 and was a unique “upside down” ski area with a 400 car
summit parking lot next to its main lodge. The area had a 2,400 foot double
chairlift, a 1,200 foot T-Bar, and a rope tow, with snow-making and
night skiing. While Agamenticus attempted to position itself in the early 1970s
with special “learn to ski” programs and a freestyle ski school, it soon found
itself in financial trouble. After the 1975 ski season, a huge real
estate development on Mt. Agamenticus was proposed, with plans to build up to
3,500 homes. Faced with strong local opposition from residents in York and Berwick, the development was scrapped, the ski area closed, and the land put into conservation status. Today, the 10,000 acre Mount Agamenticus
Conservation Region features multi-use trails that weave through the abandoned
ski area. The remnants of the old ski lift are still scattered around the area,
towers, sheaves and bull-wheels slowly rusting away.
Anyway, we hiked to the top and got
in about 5 miles of good “up & down” practice plus had a great summer day
in some beautiful country. The trails are well maintained and had few of the stream-bed,
bouldering & root-maze “ankle buster” sections that mark the trails in the
White Mountains, where we were a few weeks ago. Our hope is that the Camino
Frances – a route that has been walked by literally millions of people over the
past 1,000 years – will bear little resemblance to our New England mountain
trails. We hiked Mt. Pack Monadnock (“pack”
means “little” in the local native American language) last week, using the 1.5
mile auto road and found it was an average 12% grade. That was a TOUGH slogging
climb, but we felt better after we calculated that the average grade on our
first two days in the Pyrenees getting to Roncesvalles is only 6%. Going down was
harder on the quads and toes but easier from a cardiovascular standpoint. So far this year, we’ve already put in about
320 miles of training walks. This month will be the last practice time we’ll have
but with a 5 day trip to St. Louis to see our kids and grandkids plus Joan’s 4
day canoe trip to Lake Umbagog in NH with her friends, it will be tough to get
in the miles. I plan to doing a multiday “rails to trails’ walk while she’s
gone.
Big news! We got our first
charitable contribution a few days ago! In case you overlooked it on this blog
(top right section) we’re walking our pilgrimage to raise money for the Merrimack Valley Hospice House.
This is a wonderful institution that is close to our hearts. Joan was CEO of
the Home Health Foundation and instrumental in the creation of the hospice
house. So- come on!
